


Darkness Snow and Red

by KP100



Category: Danny Phantom
Genre: Abuse, Alternate Universe, Angst, Disowned Danny, Identity Reveal, Minor Violence, Recovery
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-08-09
Updated: 2016-11-18
Packaged: 2018-08-07 15:52:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 13
Words: 6,699
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7720726
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KP100/pseuds/KP100
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"I...thought you were dead. I couldn't bear it, so I took you home where I discovered you were barely alive. What happened that night Daniel? Why were your parents trying to kill you, even in human form?" Danny stared up in the glistening red eyes.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Beginning

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is a story I started a few years ago, I've gone through and edited the grammatical errors I could find, but let me know if there is anymore! This is the prologue.

Darkness, snow, and red. That's all Danny could see, could tell of the world. All he knew was darkness, snow and red. Of course, he'd known much more before this, but what had caused this was an intense pain for him to think about and took too much energy, so he tried his best not to. He knew if he didn't get help immediately, he'd black out and probably never come to. Slowly, with the arm that wasn't so banged up that it felt numb, he reached in his pocket and pulled out his cell phone. Very painfully seeing as he had multiple bruises, cuts and other injuries, he dialed a number, and brought the electronic to his ear. He prayed silently that it would pick up. He was his only hope now…

"Hello?"

"Vlad…" Danny squeaked out softly, his voice sounded weak and pathetic compared to how confident it usually was.

"Who is this?" Vlad didn't recognize Danny, he was used to the brave voice that always came from him, and also annoyed Vlad to no end.

"Danny… Vlad, I need…help." Danny barely got that sentence out, barely hanging on to consciousness. He knew his time was ticking by, and quickly.

"Daniel? What's wrong?"

"I…think I'm dying."

"What! Daniel, pay attention. Where are you? How badly hurt are you?"

"I'm…in a forest…behind FentonWorks… and I can't tell. I can't lift my head…" He knew he was badly injured, but he wasn't sure to what extent. 

"Okay, Daniel I'm coming to get you as fast as possible. Try to stay conscious." Danny nodded, not wanting to waste energy on an "ok".

It was about fifteen minutes later when Vlad landed behind FentonWorks. He saw a fresh trail of blood in the snow, and some footprints next to them that seemed very fresh. He took off, following them as fast as possible, and when he found Danny, he wasn't alone. Jack was standing over Danny, who was laying face down in the snow. Jack had an cold glint in his eye, even though Danny was in human form.

Jack raised a very big ecto gun, and aimed at Danny. Vlad gasped and flew at a terrifying speed, sweeping Danny out of harm's way right as Jack pulled the trigger. No one was hurt, but Jack now knew what Danny's savior looked like, and there was no doubt he'd hunt him down. Vlad didn't care though, he knew he could handle Jack. He was mainly worried about Danny, who had several large scrapes and cuts all along his face and body, his side had a huge gap in it, which was covered with no fresh blood, just dried blood, thankfully. He had a huge scrape on his head, his hair matted with blood, but worst of all, his left arm. His left arm was so twisted and broken that it was purple, swollen and there was a bone sticking out of Danny's arm. Just looking at it made Vlad wince.

Vlad cradled Danny gently in his arms, careful not to budge or bother his severely broken arm. He sped as fast as he could possibly go, pushing the limits of his speed, toward his mansion. Glancing down at Danny, who was growing paler by the minute, Vlad muttered one single prayer. "God, please don't let me be too late."


	2. Hearts Touch

Danny groaned and opened his eyes. There was a white ceiling and cream colored walls. The bed under him felt like a cloud, ruling out the possibility of him being in a hospital. There were IVs attached to him, and he had a cast on his left arm and right leg. He tried to sit up so he could get a better look around, but was met with an intense pain in his chest.

"I wouldn't do that. You're pretty hurt Daniel." Danny jumped in surprise, and locked his eyes with Vlad.

"Where am I? What happened?" Vlad gazed into Danny's eyes and saw fear and confusion there. Danny was scared about what had happened, even though he tried not to show it. 'Ah, his hero streak has come in...' Vlad thought to himself.

"You're in my mansion. Your parents hurt you for some reason and you ran into the woods behind your house to get away. You called me and asked for help, said you thought you were dying. When I found you, you were unconscious and Jack was standing over you aiming an ecto weapon at you. If he'd shot you, you would have died. I grabbed you before he could shoot, and took you here where you'd be safe." Danny tried hard to recall anything. He remembered pain, lots of it, and some of that phone call. He decided to trust Vlad, at least for now.

"Did you hurt my dad?"

"No. I didn't even think about it… I was rather focused on the bleeding half ghost teenager in my arms." Vlad's voice wavered a little at this response. Danny decided not to push it too far, plus he was still quite exhausted.

"Thanks Vlad." Danny closed his heavy eyes, and fell asleep.

 

Vlad watched Danny absentmindedly as he slept, he was glad he was safe, but he wondered what had happened to him. Also, why had Danny called him of all people? He sighed as he realized Danny's IV was running low. He walked out of the room and down the vast stairs to the kitchen, where he got a new bag. After walking back up to Danny's room, he hooked it up and decided he should go to bed. It was past midnight.

 

Sometime in the night Danny woke up to a crash. He tried to sit up, but again was met with excruciating pain. "What the heck's going on out there?" Danny wondered aloud. After a few minutes, the noise stopped and Vlad walked into Danny's room.

"Sorry, Skulker was here. He heard you were badly hurt and wanted to take advantage of that." Danny's eyes grew wide. Vlad, of all people, had defended him against some one he had worked with before.

"Um, thanks a lot Vlad." Vlad could tell this weirded Danny out, so he decided to leave.

"Get some sleep. You need it." Vlad shut the door, and turned out the hall lights so Danny's room was dark. Danny closed his eyes once again and went to sleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I was originally planning on updating weekly, but I might change that to biweekly. Let me know which you would prefer! Also, I wrote this when I was in high school, and I had little to no knowledge on medical treatment and still don't seeing as I have never been to the hospital for myself, always other people. So I'm sorry if anything is incorrect.


	3. Balancing and Shadow

Danny opened his eyes once again. The lights were all turned off, but sunlight was filtering in lightly through the blinded windows. He tried moving his left leg, and found it stiff but possible to move. He then tested his right arm, and felt a slight stab of pain near his elbow. Looking over he realized he had IVs stuck in his arm and tapped down so they wouldn't stick up. 'Note to self, don't move the arm with IVs in it.' Danny lifted his head and found it easy relatively and pain free. Pursing his lips in strain and concentration, Danny slowly sat up. He pulled the IVs out of his arm, wincing slightly. He put most of his weight on his left leg, and stood up. He stood there, on wobbly, unstable legs. Too afraid to move, Danny sat back down on the bed. About five nervous minutes later, Danny was standing again, and took a cautious step. He lost his balance immediately, and began teetering and waving his hands wildly in an attempt to regain his balance. While this was happening Vlad walked into the room.

"Daniel!" he exclaimed, setting down a trey of soup. Right as Danny began to fall, Vlad caught him so he wouldn't hurt himself further. "You must be careful. You've only been resting for a week now. How much sleep do you normally get anyways?" Vlad set Danny back on his feet, but didn't relax.

Fearful of falling again, and embarrassed that Vlad had to catch him, Danny sat down on the bed. "Five, six hours on a good night."

"Daniel, that's not healthy. Why so little?" Vlad was shocked. Teenagers where supposed to get at least eight hours of sleep a night.

"I had to fight ghosts. They like to show up whenever, it doesn't matter what time it is to them."

"Well, you need to catch up on sleep. You've been healing rapidly, faster than I've ever seen. You're leg's almost back to normal. Go to sleep Daniel." Danny sighed, but laid back down anyway. "Oh, before you go to sleep, take this." Vlad held out a small white pill. "It's a calcium pill. It'll help your arm. I've been having to force feed you these, and you fight back pretty hard." For the first time, Danny noticed a big bruise on Vlad's forearm that looked like a foot print. Danny picked up the pill, glanced at it, figured he didn't have much else to loose and swallowed it. He closed his eyes, and fell into a deep slumber.

Vlad sighed as he began pouring the soup into some special Tupperware that stayed warm for a longer time, then sat it on the bedside table along with a spoon and finally, put the IVs back into Danny. He picked up the tray from a nearby bed side table, and fazed through the floor into the kitchen. As he set the tray in the sink for the maids to clean, he thought he felt a shadow pass over him and a whisper "Take all, leave all." He stiffened, ready to defend Danny if necessary, and looked around. Seeing nothing, Vlad decided it was just his imagination and went off to his study to work on some papers.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm so sorry this took so long to put out, I've been either working or running errands all week and I'm super tired at night, so I haven't gotten to posting it until now.


	4. Almost Healed

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This takes place 4 weeks later.

Danny groaned as he opened his eyes and rolled over in bed to look at the digital alarm clock on his bedside table. The bright red digits read 9:32 a.m. "Ugh, it's too early for me to be up." He complained and closed his eyes, refusing to get up just yet. After about thirty minutes of Danny laying there perfectly still, trying to recapture Queen Mab, and doing so unsuccessfully, he groaned again and rolled out of bed. Sighing, he started walking downstairs. He was almost completely healed; his shoulder still had a thick cut in it where you could see a little bone and his arm was extremely bruised but no longer broken. It was just tender when it was touched, the bruise affected his bone as well as the muscle and skin. Vlad had ordered him to absolutely, positively, do not go ghost until he had nothing but scars left. He didn't want him to risk making the injuries worse, or even get ectoplasm in them by transforming.

Walking into the kitchen, still in a sleep induced hazed, Danny reached into a cabinet and pulled out a box of cereal. He poured some in an pristine white bowl, and added milk and a spoon. Sitting down to his simple breakfast, he took a bite, and almost spit it out with laughter when he realized what he was eating. Fruitloops. '"When did he get these?" He mused to himself. Chocking down the laughter, he quickly finished the bowl, and placed it in the sink, completely aware that Vlad's maids and such would get to cleaning it once the sink was fuller. He walked into the entertainment room, and flopped on the couch to watch T.V. He figured Vlad was in his study working on paperwork or some other boring adult related stuff. An hour later, Danny finally fell asleep again while watching cartoons about an alien that was sent to Earth and an Earth boy who tried stop all of his plans to take over the world. It was an odd but interesting show that Sam liked.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I had to add A LOT onto this chapter, it was originally just 259 words long. There wasn't a lot to work with for this chapter, so I'll update a third time this week because it's so short.


	5. A Visit

It'd been three hours, and still no peep or squeak from Vlad. Not even the sound of a rusty door hinge opening. Danny was beginning to get worried, where was Vlad? Was he okay? He stood up from the couch and walked over to the window. Looking out at the snowy grounds of the mansion, Danny brought a fist up to his mouth and began to bite lightly on his knuckles out of nervousness. It was a habit he'd started when Vlad had taken him in.

'Where is he?' He thought to himself before deciding to check the garage and see if the car was still there. He walked out of the room and down another smaller flight of stairs into the garage. 'The car isn't here, where'd he go?' He thought to himself, furrowing his eyebrows. 

Meanwhile...

Vlad rolled down the driver side window some, glaring out at the big two story building. Three stories, if you count the basement. He absolutely loathed the owners, and he wished he could do something to them so they would know, but he couldn't because of Danny. If he did anything, Danny would be very disappointed in him, and there was always the chance that they could trace it back to him somehow. He did have a few words for them though...  
Picking up the envelope from the passenger seat, he slipped it into the mailbox. Rolling the window back up, Vlad hit the gas and drove off. It was around noon when he stopped at the Nasty Burger drive through and ordered Danny and himself some lunch. He usually despised this kind of food, but decided that he would need an excuse for being out if Danny had noticed his absence, plus he wanted to get him a small surprise. While he was waiting for his food to be ready, he saw Sam and Tucker, walking into the parking lot and toward the front doors.

'Hey...aren't they Daniel's friends?' Vlad mused to himself as he was handed his food. He parked the car and then got out of the car and jogged up to them. "Hello, aren't you Daniel's friends?" They turned around, and when they saw who it was, horror and anger filled their faces.

"Where is he! Where'd you take Danny!" Sam yelled at Vlad, her body language being hostile and tense. Blinking in slight surprise at the sudden anger from the girl, Vlad took a step back.

"Um, I'm sorry, but I'm afraid I can't tell you. For Daniel's safety."

"Yeah, what'd be safe for Danny is if he's far away from you!" Sam said this as she poked Vlad in the chest. Vlad narrowed his eyes in anger.

"Young lady, if it weren't for me, Daniel would be dead. His parents nearly killed him, and he called me asking for help." Vlad turned swiftly at this, ignoring the disbelieving statements shouted at him. Vlad got back in his car and put it in drive, then pulled out of the parking lot and drove home.


	6. Thanks

"Danny?" Vlad walked up behind Danny who turned around, giving him a bright smile. He muted the TV where he was watching some show that Vlad didn't recognize. "I was wondering if you'd like me to tutor you on your ghost powers. I understand if you don't want me to." Danny blinked at him in surprise. It'd been a full two months since Vlad had saved him from dying at the hands of someone he used to love, his own mother and father. Did he want Vlad to teach him? Vlad was evil before, but he hadn't done anything evil since Danny had moved in... Or, at least, as far as Danny knew. He had also proven himself and showed Danny that he wants to help him. Making his decision, Danny gave Vlad a smile.

"Sure." Vlad's face turned into a look of surprise, then a happy smile. Unless Danny was blind, he didn't see even a hint of evil in Vlad's face. However, he did see joy and happiness. Danny remembered what Vlad had said before he tried to get his morph DNA to make a clone. "All I ever wanted, was love." Maybe he was telling the truth. Danny suddenly felt sorry for all the times he'd teased Vlad, called him a fruitloop, everything. In truth, Danny had no idea why Vlad had saved him. It would've made more since for Vlad to have hung up on him and forget about him. He should hate Danny for all the things he'd done to him. He threw all Vlad had wanted, the love of a son and wife, in his face. Vlad offered a truce once, let down his guard, and Danny had accepted only to trick Vlad. He couldn't imagine why Vlad had saved him.

"Hey Vlad?" Danny asked when Vlad turned around to head upstairs. He paused and turned back towards Danny expectantly. He probably had his guard up expecting Danny to yell at him and take back everything he'd said to Vlad in the past two months.

"Why'd you do it?" Danny asked.

"Do what?" Vlad seemed very confused.

"Why'd you save me? If I were you I would've hated me by then and not cared." Vlad blinked and walked over to Danny. He put a hand on Danny's shoulder and knelt down so he was level with Danny.

"Danny, I could never hate you. Sure I was mad and even hurt, but I couldn't leave you to die." Danny nodded and smiled at Vlad. And before he knew what he was doing, his arms were around Vlad's neck, and he was hugging the man he'd never thought he'd hug. Ever.

"Thanks." Danny mumbled next to Vlad's ear. Vlad, who had frozen in place from shock, relaxed a little and hugged Danny back.

"You're welcome Daniel."


	7. Training

"Ugh..." Danny groaned as he opened his eyes. The first thing he noticed was Vlad, who was standing over him with his hands on Danny's shoulders. The next thing he noticed was that it wasn't even light outside. Why was he up if the sun wasn't even up?

"Oh good, you're awake. Time to start training." Vlad turned and left the room, leaving behind a blinking half awake Danny. Sighing, he stood up and sleepily headed out the door and followed Vlad. "Okay, lets start with something simple. Aim at the targets, and shoot. Take down as many as possible in sixty seconds." Vlad pressed a button and about thirty targets all popped up on the other side of the lab from Danny.

"Too easy." Danny grinned, a spark of excitement in his eyes as he transformed. It felt both odd and refreshing, since it had been a while since he had transformed. Starting up his fists with ecto plasm, Vlad pressed another button that started a stop watch. Firing, Danny took down over half the targets when the time was up.

"Very good Danny. Lets make it a little harder for you." Vlad set the stopwatch to thirty seconds and pressed a green button which caused the targets to start moving very fast. Danny blinked, and started firing with better aim. When time was up, he'd hit eighteen targets.

"Okay. What powers do you have Danny? Show me them." Danny nodded and thought about all the powers Vlad knew. There was flight, intangibility, ecto blasts, and his ghostly wail.

"Do you want to see them all or the ones you haven't seen?" Vlad blinked.

"I haven't seen them all? Well, just show me all of them." Danny nodded at his answer, and turned intangible, then invisible, jumped up and flew lazily around the room. He shot a couple of ecto blasts at the targets, landed and shot ice from his hands, eyes, and feet at the targets, freezing them.

"I have a ghostly wail, you've seen it, but I'm not going to use it in here. It's very destructive."

"I remember." Vlad said, trying not to think of being slammed into a wall by it.

Danny then attempted to split and make copies of himself, managing to make four, but Vlad could tell he was struggling.

"You're struggling with that one. Is it new?"

"Yeah." He said, his voice sounding slightly winded. 

"Okay, fuse back and I'll help you." Danny did as told and watched Vlad with complete attention.

"Okay, focus on the energy. Feel it?" Danny nodded. "Now, think about how many clones you want and try to split the power into that number." Danny did as told, and when he opened his eyes, there were five of him.

"Hey, it worked! Thanks!" All the Dannys grinned as the original fused back.

"You are welcome, lets take a breakfast break. You've got to be getting hungry." Danny nodded, and they both flew up and through the house and into the kitchen for some much needed food.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm soooooo sorry this is late! I got caught up with school, work and helping my friend move and didn't get the chance to update!


	8. A Visitor

Danny sighed as he laid down that night, ready for a nice restful sleep. After a long, hard day of trying to find a maximum amount of clones and later trying to conquer his ghostly wail. His mind and body were aching after that. He rolled over on his side, ignoring the shot of pain coming from his diaphragm, and slipped a single hand under the soft, cloud like pillow. Surprisingly, he liked it here. He didn't have to do anything he didn't like or keep secrets. He didn't need to come up with some insane lie for why he had a giant gash in his arm or a fractured femur.

Suddenly his ghost sense went off. Frowning, Danny silently transformed and sank through the bed, the floor, and kept going until he was in the lab. The portal was open, but the lights in the lab were off. Furrowing his brow, Danny let the intangibility drop and began glancing around the room for any signs of spectral activity. There wasn't any visible signs of a ghost, but there were several toppled beakers and test tubes in one corner. A strange purple liquid puddle on the floor, and the bottom of Danny's boot when he realized it was there. Frowning in disgust, Danny lifted his boot and started to shake it. Once the liquid had pooled off Danny's boot and back into the puddle, he noticed a softly glowing figure under the table. Bending down, Danny crawled forward, so he was just at the table's edge. Tensing his muscles in case the figure decided to attack, Danny spoke softly and gently.

"Hey, you okay?" The only response he got was a sniffle. Danny frowned, and inched forward a little more, so his face was shadowed. Whoever it was, they were wearing all black, with a hood pulled up to shadow their face. They were facing Danny, hugging their knees to their chest.

"Are you okay? Who are you?" Danny reached forward, gently pushing the hood back. They didn't make a move to stop him, but flinched when his hand brushed their cheek. The hood fell back, revealing the person's hair and face. Danny froze. The glowing being sitting in front of him, with a terrified expression, was Ember.


	9. Helping

"Ember? What happened to you?" Ember was shaking and hugging her knees. Her face was bruised, and dark purple. She had tiny streams of ectoplasm running down her face and toward her chest. She was scrunched down on herself, and seemed to be trying to squeeze into the wall. Danny crawled foreword, concern coloring his eyes and tone. "Are you okay?" he reached out to touch her, but she suddenly swatted his hand away and crawled along the wall away from him. Danny tried again, not moving as quickly so he wouldn't startle her. "Ember? I'm a good guy remember? You can tell me what happened." He reached out, and lightly covered her hand with his own. She trembled, but didn't try to move away again. Danny stayed quiet, allowing her time to think. She looked up into his blue eyes, and finally let out a shaky sigh.  
"Skulker and I got into a fight... I thought I could take him, but I was hurt anyway." She sniffled and Danny held in a surprised gasp. He knew Skulker was cruel, but he never though he'd actually hurt another ghost that's almost as powerful as him, let alone a girl! Scooting closer, but not too close to make her uncomfortable, Danny began to unzip her jacket.  
"What are you doing?" she exclaimed, fumbling for the zipper with shaky hands.  
"Helping. If you don't get those wounds cleaned and gauzed, you could bleed out." Danny gently moved her hand away from the zipper, and helped her out of the jacket. Danny couldn't hold in his gasp this time. Her stomach was completely dark blue, with some grey spots and she had ectoplasm all over it as well. Biting her lip, she looked at Danny nervously. She couldn't believe she was getting help from an enemy! This was definitely going to cause her reputation to go down.  
Danny gently and carefully slipped his arms under her knees, and across her back. Trying his best not to hurt her. She latched her hands behind his neck, and lifted herself up a little so he wouldn't have to worry about hurting her as much. He walked over to a lab table, and laid her down on it. She shuddered a little as the cool metal made contact with her wounds. Danny turned and walked over to a nearby cabinet, where he pulled out some alcohol, bandages, and gauze.  
Returning to the table where Ember lay in pain, he set the medical supplies down on a nearby countertop. "This is gonna hurt a little." He warned her, unscrewing the cap to the alcohol. She nodded and gritted her teeth. Danny poured a little bit of the antistatic on a cotton ball, and began cleansing her wounds as fast as he could. As soon as he was done with one, he'd wrap it up and move on to the next. It took him fifteen minutes to fully cleanse and wrap her up. After he was done, he put the supplies away, and helped her stand.  
"Thanks." she smiled at him.  
"Any time. You can't go back in the ghost zone in this state though, so you can stay here." Danny grabbed her hand, and phased them through the ceiling until they reached his room. Ember glanced around, and Danny watched her. After a few moments she looked back at him.  
"Pretty kickin' place you have. I like the guitar. Is it a base?" Danny grinned and nodded. She looked around again, taking in his huge room. Then, blinking she looked down at their hands. Danny followed her gaze, and realized they where still holding hands. They immediately let go of each others hand, and started walking around. Danny reached under his bed, and pulled out a few blankets and a pillow. Laying one of the blankets and the pillow on the floor, he laid down and covered up with his blanket.  
After a few minutes, Ember noticed what he was doing. "What're you doing?"  
"You can have the bed." Danny mumbled sleepily as he settled down on the floor. Blinking in surprise, Ember walked over to the bed and pushed the covers aside. Crawling into the super soft bed, she laid down, and rolled over so she could see Danny. He was facing her, already asleep.  
"Thanks dipstick, maybe you're not so bad after all." and with that, Ember quietly slipped into a sleep like state.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm sooooooo sorry for the long time between updates... I got caught up in school, and work and just life. For that, I'm going to post two chapters tonight.


	10. Breakfast Burritos

Warm sunshine burst through the expensive drapes hanging on Danny's big two paned window. The rays of sunshine slowly crept across the floor, up the bed, and finally settled comfortably on Ember's face. Scrunching up her face, the girl opened her eyes. Repeatedly blinking until her vision cleared, she slowly recalled where she was, and what predicament she was in. Rolling over, she glanced down at the still sleeping Danny. He looked extremely peaceful, and was even druling slightly on his pillow. Ember scrunched up her nose at the sight, but chuckled none the less. Slowly, she slid out of the bed and began flying through the house. Eventually, she found the kitchen and settled on making him some sort of breakfast as a thank you. After thinking back on what she could remember how to make, she made her decision and strolled over to the fridge and pulled out a few ingrediants. Eggs, cheese, milk, and managed to balance them in her arms. Placing them on the counter, Ember began opening and closing cupboards trying to find a frying pan. After a few minutes, she finally found one in a cupoard over the sink. Setting to work, she turned on the stove and cracked open a couple of eggs. As she stirred the eggs around, she added in ingrediants. Cheese, milk, spices. After a while, she finally finished what was supposed to be an omlet but looked more like a burrito. She smiled as she heard footsteps on the stairs, and slid the omlet on a plate. As soon as she set the plate on the small kitchen table, Danny came running into the kitchen with a half panic half hungry look. Over all, it was pretty funny.  
"I made you some breakfast dipstick. It was supposed to be an omlet...didn't work out too well." Danny glanced down at the breakfast and smiled in amusement and relief.  
"It's okay, it looks good." Danny picked up a fork, and very unsurely cut off a piece and tried it. It was spicey, and warm. He smiled up at Ember through the burrito.  
"Well?"  
"It's good. Better than you probably thought it'd be." Ember smiled as she slid her own burrito onto a plate and sank into a chair across from Danny. Cutting off a piece of her burrito, she slipped it into her mouth and twirled her fork thoughtfully as she chewed. After a few minutes, Danny finished his burrito, and stood to put his plate in the sink. He turned to walk out of the kitchen, but Ember caught him before he could.  
"Danny? Can I ask you something?" Danny blinked, surprised. She never called him Danny.  
"Sure, what?"  
"What...happened to you? You disappeared. All the ghosts think you're dead or in hiding."  
"Oh, well... um... I guess I'll have to tell you eventually.. um I told my parents...you know, my secret."  
"And?" She raised an eyebrow, an interested look on her face.  
"They...attacked me."  
"Oh..." Ember's expression turned into one of shock.  
"I managed to make it out to the woods, but I knew if I didn't get help soon I'd die. They hurt me that badly... I called Vlad...he...he saved me."  
"Have you seen your parents since?"  
"No. I don't really know if it'd be smart to see them."  
"I understand that. I just can't believe they attacked you. They never seemed like those type of adults..."  
"Yeah...hey Ember?"  
"Yeah?"  
"Can you keep it a secret? I don't want this to fly around the ghost zone just yet." Danny placed a hand on the door pane, ready to walk out.  
"Yeah Danny, I will." Danny smiled at her.  
"Thanks."  
"You're welcome, dipstick." She smirked lightly and turned back to her own burrito.


	11. Decisions

"Tucker, what are we gonna do!? Vlad has Danny, and we don't know where they are or what he's doing to him." Sam started pacing around her bedroom, as Tucker sat on the bed, his head following her movements.  
"Sam, relax. All we have to do is load up on ecto weapons, throw the booooomerang, and get in the Specter Speader."  
"Tucker, I don't think it's that simple. Something's wrong. We haven't heard anything from the Fenton's and Danny's been gone for months. Don't you think they'd be a little worried by now?" Sam stopped passing and looked worriedly at Tucker.  
"Yeah, you're right. We should investigate." Tucker mused before he jumped off the bed and ran for the door. Sam grabbed him by the collar before he could open the door.  
"Uh, yeah. We should, but we're not going to without a plan. If the Fenton's aren't worried about Danny, then we know for a fact something's wrong. We need to figure out when the best time to investigate would be without getting ourselves hurt or in trouble. It's not like we can just walk up to them and ask where he is." Sam released Tucker, and placed her hand on her chin. "Hmm... it's six-thirty. Vlad will probably be done with dinner by the time we arrive. How about we start to head over there at six-forty five?" Sam raised an eyebrow, glancing at Tucker, who nodded.  
"Okay, 'till then we need to try and figure out what might be wrong... and dance around it delicately." Sam plopped down in a nearby purple bean bag chair, and Tucker sat back on to the bed.  
"Maybe Danny got tired of all the explosions and ran away... and left them a note?" Tucker suggested after a long silence.  
"No, Danny wouldn't do that, especially without telling us." Sam shook her head.  
"Yeah..." another long silence fallowed Tucker's comment.  
"Hmm... maybe he... got his secret revealed, and now he's recovering?"  
"No, we would've known about a ghost fight." this time, Sam didn't even glance up at Tucker. Instead, she glanced at the clock.  
"Six-forty three... lets get going Tuck." she stood up, and strode out the door, with Tucker on her heels.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry, this is really just a filler but I needed to tie up some loose ends with this...


	12. Confrontation

It was night-time by the time Sam and Tucker arrived outside the Master's Mansion, and they prefered it that way, or at least Sam did. She pulled her helmet off, and hid her scooter by the side of the mansion. "Come on Tucker." she whispered. She crept around the side of the building after Tucker hid his helmet and scooter, and he followed her.  
"Why are you leading?" he whispered.  
"Because we both know I'm better with handling Vlad than you. Especially if it comes down to a fight." Sam whispered back over her shoulder. "Plus I'm a lot better at stealth."  
"Untrue..." Tucker whispered then went off into unintelligible mumbles.  
"Shh!" Sam hissed at him. He quit talking and settled for a glare. Sam rolled her eyes and snuck up to an open window. She grabbed the edge and pulled herself up to see inside. To her immense surprise, Danny was in the room watching TV on the sofa, and he was alone. Vlad was no where in sight.  
"Psst! Danny" she called out to him. He frowned and looked over to the window with a confused look. Seeing Sam at the window, his eyes grew in size and he got up and walked over to the window.  
"What are you guys doing here?" he asked, seeing Tucker. "If Vlad finds you, he'll have a restraining order put on you."  
"We wanted to check on you." Sam explained.  
"Stay out there, I'll be out in a second." Danny ran away from the window and exited the building, then he ran around to where Sam and Tucker were. "How did you know where I am?" he asked, crouching away from the window in case Vlad came in the room.  
"Call it a hunch." Tucker chuckled.  
"Are you okay? C'mon, we need to get out of here before Vlad finds out you're gone." Sam grabbed Danny's wrist and pulled him toward her scooter.  
"Sam, I'm fine. And I can't." Danny said, dragging his heels into the ground so he wouldn't be dragged.  
"Are you crazy?! Danny, Vlad is your arch-enemy, remember? He's going to do something horrible to you after he gains your trust!" Sam exclaimed, trying to sway him.  
"He already has it." Danny stated coldly, determined to defend Vlad.  
"What?!" Tucker and Sam exclaimed in surprise.  
"What happened to you? You used to hate Vlad." Sam ground through her teeth.  
"Sam, he saved my life." Danny explained. "And forgave me for everything, took me in, I think he's deserving of my trust."  
"He saved your life? How exactly did he do that?" Sam asked, annoyance and sarcasm coloring her voice, her hands now on her hips.  
"He came after me after my parents tried to kill me. He fixed me up, I was close to being dead from so much blood loss and being in the snow and ice for as long as I was."  
"...your parents tried to kill you? Why?" Sam asked, her eyes becoming softer. She dropped her hands to her hips, one reaching out for Danny's hand.  
"I told them my secret. They didn't accept me..." Danny replied, looking down.  
Sam moved her hand to Danny's shoulder. "Oh Danny... I'm so sorry. I can't believe they wouldn't accept you."  
Danny smiled at her. "Thanks... I'm still not leaving though. Vlad's actually been a really nice guy, and I kind of like it here."  
Sam sighed as she took her hand off of Danny's shoulder. "Fine. But we're coming to check up on you every once in a while." She said, picking up her helmet and clipping it on under her chin. Tucker did the same thing.  
Danny chuckled. "I had a feeling you would."  
Sam smiled at him as she took her scooter in her hand and started it up. She waved to him before riding out to the street.  
"Bye dude. Good luck." Tucker chuckled as he started his scooter up and took off after Sam. Danny chuckled and walked back inside, planning on continuing the action movie he had been watching. When he walked back in the room, he saw Vlad standing by the open window, smiling.  
"Oh, um, did you hear any of that by chance?" Danny asked, rubbing the back of his neck.  
"Quit a bit." Vlad nodded, still smiling.  
"Erm... what parts?"  
"The parts were you defended me." Vlad chuckled and crossed his arms over his chest.  
"Oh."  
"Thank you, for that, Danny." Vlad smiled before walking out of the room.  
"...well that was awkward..." Danny muttered, sitting back down and clicking play on the movie.


	13. Revelation

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the ending... :D I couldn't help myself.

The next morning when Danny woke up, he rolled out of bed lazily and walked down to the kitchen. He grabbed a bowl, a box of cereal and the milk and sat down at the table. Pouring the cereal and milk into a bowl, he began to eat. He glanced up when Vlad came in the kitchen with the morning paper, and began making his coffee, but didn't say anything; he was still a little embarrassed over last night's event.  
Once Vlad was done making his coffee, he sat down at the kitchen table and began sipping his coffee. After a few minutes, he stopped mid sip and read an article in the paper with a startled expression.  
"What is it?" Danny asked, feeling both curious and concerned.  
Vlad put his cup down slowly and slid the paper across the table to Danny, who picked it up.  
"Youngest Fenton child missing? They labeled me as missing!?" Danny exclaimed. Vlad merely nodded, lost for words. "Why would they do that? I thought they hated me..." Danny asked, rhetorically and trailed off, furrowing his eyebrows.  
Vlad cleared his throat. "I've meant to ask you something about that Danny." Danny shifted his gaze up to Vlad, with a questioning look in his eyes.  
"Danny, you almost died that night. It scared the hell out of me... what happened? Did you and your parents get in a fight?"  
Danny set the paper down. "Well... kind of. I revealed my secret to them...they didn't accept it, something about how Phantom tainted me... and didn't take it well over all." Danny explained quietly. Vlad's eyebrows rose in understanding.  
"They tried to kill you...because you're part ghost?"  
"Yes and no..." Danny said, looking down.  
"What do you mean?"  
"Vlad, there's a reason I told them that night. You know I wouldn't do it unless it was a last resort. I told them because... I'm dying Vlad. My ectoplasm level is rising above normal. I've monitored it and I'm doing what I can while you aren't around here or in your lab...but it's not enough. I estimate I have about six months left. I'm going to die, Vlad."


End file.
